RE: Caterham confirms supercharged R600

[RWDKurt]

Westfields v Caterhams at this weekend's Anglesey sprint, courtesy of Longton and District Motor Club.

The quickest tintop will be a Monster EVO RS costing megabucks to prepare. It's a quick car, but it will be some way short of the fast kits.

Unless it rains of course...

[Beefmeister]

Sorry if it's been answered, but I posted this morning and only checked back 7 pages later - CBA reading them all.

So - is there going to be a road going version?

[edb49]

Beefmeister said:

Sorry if it's been answered, but I posted this morning and only checked back 7 pages later - CBA reading them all.

So - is there going to be a road going version?

Nothing's confirmed yet, but probably. Interestingly tho, the R500 had 263bhp, this has 275bhp. So not much power in it, obviously this has a lot more torque tho.

[Irish]

Brilliant. I doff my caps to the men in sheds. £45k is a bargain - I just specced a tiddlyIII golf up to £32k on the configurator.

[GravyScape]

whack a V10 engine in them, no downforce and run as a competitor against F1 and bernie

[James.S]

Drove it today round Rockingham.....wow, what a car.

Looking at 3-4 seconds a lap faster than the race R300's.......thats knocking on the door of the top 3 GT3 times this year, with only a handful of laps in the car....

Proper weapon.

[Gorbyrev]

James.S said:

Drove it today round Rockingham.....wow, what a car.

Looking at 3-4 seconds a lap faster than the race R300's.......thats knocking on the door of the top 3 GT3 times this year, with only a handful of laps in the car....

Proper weapon.

That is seriously impressive. Can't buy a GT3 car for £45K!

[James.S]

Gorbyrev said:

James.S said:

Drove it today round Rockingham.....wow, what a car.

Looking at 3-4 seconds a lap faster than the race R300's.......thats knocking on the door of the top 3 GT3 times this year, with only a handful of laps in the car....

Proper weapon.

That is seriously impressive. Can't buy a GT3 car for £45K!

Sorry meant GT4 times - still mighty impressive though......

[pw32]

It is indeed awesome to drive. Going through the banking at rockingham flat took more balls than I thought it would.

Most impressive bit for me was braking grip on those slicks. The power is very impressive but very linear and actually very drivable. The gearbox is mega!

Oh, and re the price. Impressive what you get for it.

James just about left me enough tyres to have a go in it.

[James.S]

pw32 said:

It is indeed awesome to drive. Going through the banking at rockingham flat took more balls than I thought it would.

Most impressive bit for me was braking grip on those slicks. The power is very impressive but very linear and actually very drivable. The gearbox is mega!

Oh, and re the price. Impressive what you get for it.

James just about left me enough tyres to have a go in it.

Nowhere near as brutal as i thought.....great engine.

AS for the tyres.....they where like that when i got in it, honest.

[Noger]

mic said:

16k for the upgrade is pretty good, Sadev box, rods, pistons, valves, flywheel clutch etc. The supercharger requires quite a lot of plumbing and an intercooler. It soon adds up.

Quite. I think people genuinely believe you just "bolt on a supercharger".

Seen how much room there is in a Caterham engine bay (well, I say "Bay", that small hole thing near the front) ?

Not to mention the extra cooling, fitting some sort of induction system that doesn't negate the s/c etc etc

Bargain.

[WillBrumBrum]

I thought the CSR was the top of the range Caterham? The CSR has inboard suspension and fancy downforce inducing front mudguards... so I don't really get why this new one is the best? Please inform me...

[jason61c]

As before it does seem pricey for what is basically a big BHP seven.

[thinfourth2]

WillBrumBrum said:

I thought the CSR was the top of the range Caterham? The CSR has inboard suspension and fancy downforce inducing front mudguards... so I don't really get why this new one is the best? Please inform me...

A normal 7 you tend to wear while the SV and CSR you tend to sit no


This will make zero sense to you until you drive a narrow body 7

[Bund]

James/Paul,

Will you be upgrading your r300's? Have they said the gear boxes won't need to be rebuilt so often?

The gearing, how fast was the banking?

[WillBrumBrum]

thinfourth2 said:

WillBrumBrum said:

I thought the CSR was the top of the range Caterham? The CSR has inboard suspension and fancy downforce inducing front mudguards... so I don't really get why this new one is the best? Please inform me...

A normal 7 you tend to wear while the SV and CSR you tend to sit no


This will make zero sense to you until you drive a narrow body 7

Thanks for trying to explain this for me, but alas I have not driven a narrow body 7, so it makes zero sense.

[RacerMike]

TheLastPost said:

Agreed.

I'm afraid I just don't 'get' the obsession of chasing ever bigger power figures in 'Sevens'. As others have said, they're frustrating, unexploitable and borderline dangerous on the road.

...and if you want to go fast on the track, there are better ways of doing it, now that the rest of the world outside of Caterham has grasped the concept of aerodynamics.

It's also slightly perplexing that Caterham and the marque's enthusiasts make so much of the Chapman/Lotus heritage whilst developing the car in a way that's completely contrary to Chapman's original ethos. They should be looking at clever ways to improve the performance by taking out weight, not bolting on ever more gubbins and structure to generate (and cope with) extra power.

I completely agree that anything more than a Supersport/R300 on the road is largely pointless, but I don't really understand your comments about their track suitability. They're pretty much faster than anything on track bar a single seater or Radical style prototype, and to get that kind of performance you have to spend serious money. Furthermore, how accessible is the performance of a Radical to your average driver? A Caterham has zero aero grip, meaning far more people are able to exploit it's limits.

Ultimately the speed doesn't matter much anyway. In terms of racing (which is where the R600 is aimed), it's about how many people sign up to the series, and in this case, it'll be a healthy grid of 20 or more I expect.

TheLastPost said:

Int'l Adventurer said:

I would however pay Westfield, £30k for a modern (i.e. sort out the remaining heavy bits) FW 400 with circa 250 bhp. Carbon Tub, Rear transaxle and close to 30% less weight. Would anyone else?

Having owned one of the originals, I'd be mighty tempted. There were a lot of rough edges (literally!) on the pre-production FW's that were built, but if you could simplify the tub manufacture, refine the detailing and fit a JFR (or similar) sequential in place of the LD200 Hewland, it would still make the ultimate 'Seven', IMO; much cleverer, and more in line with the Chapman ethos, than flogging what is essentially a dead horse.

I'd rather see it taken one step further and replace the 'Seven' style bodywork with something more efficient though - something akin to the Sylva Phoenix.

The whole point of a Caterham is its simplicity though! Why make it complicated and expensive to repair by using Carbon and sticking heavy bodywork on it?!

[Bund]

RacerMike said:

Yeah, with McMillan. I'm doing Supers with them next year...tracksport at the moment.

As for R600 lap times, not sure, but significantly quicker than a 300. Looks spectacular though.



ETA: DeadPrussian - It's currently on a fairly hard Avon slick. Looked like it resulted in a similar power to grip ratio as the 300 (so still moving around a lot).

Edited by RacerMike on Thursday 4th October 19:42

I like the McMillan crew. Maybe ill see you tomorrow as ill be popping into McMillan as Nick Pancisi is looked after by them also.

[Greg_D]

blindswelledrat said:

I must be in the minority here.
Whilst I love it, 45k for a modestly powered engine welded into some steel bars seems extortionate.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a woman saying "How much??????", merely looking at this objectively.
Seriously, why does this cost more than something like a Focus St? What is your money being spent on?
I dont understand it at all.

As a business owner yourself, i struggle to comprehend how you could say that

Development costs amortised over a relatively modest number of units sold, buying crate engines off ford, updated differentials and gearboxes (presumably) purchasing of supercharger, time and material cost of building the basic car, running a factory, marketing, earning a profit. they have nowhere near the buying power of the likes of ford so every component would be more, The list goes on.

As it happens, this is one of VERY few cars recently where i have looked at the price and not thought it a rip off (£60k boggo audi A6 diesels spring to mind)

[RacerMike]

Bund said:

I like the McMillan crew. Maybe ill see you tomorrow as ill be popping into McMillan as Nick Pancisi is looked after by them also.

Yup Nick is indeed in our team. He's upgraded to Supersport spec for this race

Make sure you say hi. I'm car 11 (black with white and red stripes, not to be confused with Ray Gillilands almost identical looking Supersport!). I know Andy has prepared some support option/cost leaflets, so make sure you ask him for one and get signed up fast....they're already proving to be a popular choice for next season!